


The Sun is Killing Me

by Soft_Core_Sweet



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4, Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark Comedy, Fairy Tale Parody, Fun, Insanity, Not Serious, Tragedy/Comedy, just for fun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:55:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27216790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soft_Core_Sweet/pseuds/Soft_Core_Sweet
Summary: Getting shot in the head doesn’t do wonders for the brain, as it turns out. When a poor mailman’s brain is scrambled beyond repair, his psyche is shattered, and he travels across the Mojave looking for himself, hallucinating along the way!200 years prior, a woman literally watches her world end as she enters a vault. Doubtless, she doesn’t have a good time when she wakes up. Especially since her child was kidnapped!A tragicomedy, mixed with fairy tales, purely born out of spite and fear.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	1. QUIT YOUR WHINING

Once upon a time, the world ended.

Nukes scorched the earth, killing off most of humanity and cursing the rest to unholy damnation. There were no princesses, no princes, no wise men that survived, and those that did, didn’t have much of a brain cell between them. 

The underlings- vault dwellers- gestated for years, either dying off horribly in deformed, twisted experiments, or living a life of relative luxury. Their hands would shake whilst drinking from fine china, but they survived at least. Upon reawakening to the world, most died off in droves, always leaving a single remnant of the vault. And they’d go off and save the world, a knight in shining armour. 

On the west coast, the last hero had settled and nobody else took his place. 

Then, many years later, a man decided to become a mailman.

Couriers, they were called. A wanderer, drifting from settlement to settlement, kicking up dust, collecting parcels and being paid in various ways. Never quite alike, nor aware of the others, save for one or two, the couriers roamed Nevada and the surrounding territories. One fateful day, whistling a song and living his best life, a courier was shot in the head.

It’s unfortunate that he survived, and that he is one of two focuses of this story. 

\-----

Lucas woke up with a killer headache, harsh light invading his eyes. Last night, he must have had too much to drink or that talking gecko had spiked his whiskey. Either or, it was not a good way to wake up. Nausea overcame him, and propelled his body into lurching out of bed, only to be gently supported as he vomited onto the floor. 

The man who helped Lucas was clearly talking, though the words were not piercing the constant ringing in his ears. Did somebody fire off a gun last night? Lucas continued to wince, only interrupting it by vomiting again. It was a vicious cycle, the overwhelming atmosphere of the bright, foreign space, filled with the obnoxious power of slimy chunks on the floor. His stomach screamed and his mind howled. Lucas, himself, was merely shaking and begging internally for the experience to stop.

Thirty minutes of repetitive retching went by, until Lucas was stable to wipe the snot from his nose and the grime from his lips. He was given a cold towel, which was relatively clean. Detergent couldn’t scrub out nuclear fallout, as it turned out. He uttered a hoarse “thank you”- his first words of the day- and wiped his brow. It briefly cooled him, as well as wiping the sweat and muck from his face. When he was done, the lightly brown rag had taken on a sickening crimson; to Lucas’ disgust and surprise, it was blood. 

From his perspective, Lucas’ night had gone like this:  
-Drinking at the Saloon  
-Too much drinking  
-Rowdy business  
-Concussion

An hour after this assumption, Lucas was sat on a sofa, soda in hand. Water was rare, and the kind doctor had explained that it was reserved on medical operations. Although, Lucas was too busy struggling walking across the room to notice at the time. With his spine seemingly connected to his legs, the courier was silent as he had the situation explained to him.  
“Now I hope you don’t mind, but I had to go rooting around there in your noggin’ to pull all the bits of lead out.” Doc Mitchell grumbled, taking out a pen and clipboard from his chair. Lucas frowned. Lucas stared. Lucas waited.  
“You were shot, son.” Right, that had cleared everything up then.

Having the frontal lobe being interpreted creatively with a 9mm had a few interesting results. Firstly, bad memory. Recalling shooting people? Done, dusted, stored in muscle memory. Last name? Living relatives? Current delivery? Apparently unimportant. The brain had deemed it non-essential in its recovery, and scattered those memories to the wind. What was left was scrambled, and telling fact from fiction was proving difficult. Secondly, a really bad headache. Not unmanageable, but enough to make someone wish for another cranial jumble around. Just another clip of bullets would do the trick. Thirdly, the brain had needed a few days to readjust to its environment of being blown in half.

Mitchell wrote some notes down, and cleared his throat.  
“Okay. Now I've got a few statements. I want you to tell me how much they sound like something you'd say.” Tests were not fun- even subjectively. Without a proper education, Lucas wasn’t inclined to agree nor disagree with much, even before his mind and body went on strike. Mumbling out responses to statements, he wandered mentally for a while, before snapping back to reality- in all of its grim glory.

Pictures with ink splotches on them were held up in front of his face, for thought perception. A fairy being torn in half, a flayed princess, two bears high fiving. 

Eyes wide, Lucas clasped his hand to his mouth. Why the fuck did he say those? Doc Mitchell possibly had the same question. Testing his sanity, Lucas spluttered out a few more words.

Clothes. Sand. Normal. Ready. Cold. 

The conscious was clearly functioning, but medically, Lucas was, as quoted, “nuttier than a Bighorner dropping”. Professionally speaking, it was halfway between normal wastelander and radioactive worshipper. Pragmatically speaking, the courier was still allowed to handle a firearm. At the door, Mitchell had handed Lucas his clothes, and his shotgun, along with a raised eyebrow and a gentle warning not to cause trouble. 

There was no chance of the man becoming a messiah of the land, at least. Those were better off in fairy tales.

\-----

In a land not so far from Goodsprings, was a brain. Rudely dislodged from the head he called home, the brain took a long around, saw the vast desert sprawled about, and sighed.  
“Well,” he said, “might as well find a new home.” He grew arms and legs, and walked in a random direction, whistling a song he’d intended to echo in his home. 

Coming to a cave, the brain saw a fire, a cozy blaze that was being fueled by a man, at ease with the stars and the world. Noticing the brain all lost and alone, he gestured for the brain to join him and sit, which the brain accepted. With no eyes, and purely through intuition, or perhaps memory, the brain studied the cave dweller. His chestnut brown eyes mirrored the cave walls, though in such a way that improved on the speckled texture, adding more personality to the face. Whether the fire accentuated his tanned complexion, or seemed to detract from it, was tough to say. The brain didn’t have eyes after all. Blood dripped down onto his stubble, and the brain realised that the man was missing the top of his skull.

Upon enquiring, the man laughed and threw a bottle cap in the empty space, letting it rattle and inhabit what was left of his head.  
“Some bastard shot me, and I’ve been out of sorts since.” Silence fell for a while, and the brain grew pensive. Had he had a beard, he would have stroked it thoughtfully. As he did not, he spoke over the crackling flames and the rattling of the spinning bottle cap.

“You’re missing a brain.”  
“Yes.”  
“I’m missing a body.”  
“So I saw.”  
“Then surely we should team up.”

The bottle cap’s grinding noise increased, before flying out of the cavity in the skull. It bounced around the cave walls, and into the moonlight, where it evaporated like a fine mist. That was okay, the brain thought, he didn’t think metal belonged there anyway. With an outstretched hand, the man seemed to agree with the idea, and the brain leapt on. 

Whole again, they walked out of the cave, where they were immediately eaten by a deathclaw.  
“Ah, shit.”

\-----

Lucas woke with a start. It wasn’t as rude an awakening as the first time, given he had been shot in the head, but it was still unpleasant. No violent puking though! The day before had been tougher, with the whole “not being dead” scenario, plus shooting geckos, plus having to interact with a person normally. Sunny didn’t seem to mind, she laughed at the courier’s ineptitude, and made a comment about his gun skills hopefully being better than his social skills. Four dead geckos answered that question. Lucas still couldn’t answer any questions still. Useless fucker.

The robot, who spoke cheerfully and full of gritty static, helpfully loaned the newcomer his house. It was common knowledge that robots did not need sleep. Humans did, and Lucas did so for a while. He wasn’t going to leave Goodsprings for the foreseeable future, but nobody seemed to object to that. Victor, the cowboy robot, was worryingly polite. If a machine could be anxious, or smile through gritted teeth, it would have been Victor. His strolls around town, arms flailing joyously in the air always had a forced manner to them, as if he knew people were suspicious of them and he was trying to act normal.

A paranoid robot with anxiety- only at Goodsprings.

The other locals were relaxed, used to the environment of the Mojave. They were the type to carry on rocking in their chairs as New Vegas burnt to the ground behind them. They were for the town, of the town. Little else concerned them. Easy Pete was synonymous with this, quite literally owning a rocking chair out front of the saloon. Chet was casual, but in a weaselly way, always eyeing up Lucas whenever he was in the store. Chet pretended not to care that nobody bought guns from him, but he really was. Trudy was the unofficial leader- everyone listened to her. Those that didn’t, listened to Mitchell, who didn’t like to be heard, or Sunny, who did her talking with her rifle, much like Lucas. Lucas liked Sunny.

It was the third day of recovery that the peaceful bubble of Goodsprings burst. A man dressed in a dark blue suit, topped with an armoured vest, stormed into the saloon, and demanded for a “Ringo”. What that was, Lucas had no clue, nor did he care, but the various patrons shot Trudy a lazily panicked look- emotions often had that undertone in the town- whilst the woman herself de-escalated the situation as much as she could.

Joe Cobb announced he would arrive later in the afternoon, to take Ringo by force.

Ever the diplomat, Trudy brushed off the violence as one would brush sand off a boot. She saw it as a bluff, and therefore, everyone else did. Sunny was less convinced, and took Lucas to see Ringo, who was very guarded indeed. In the space of an hour, they came up with a plan, that solely relied on Easy Pete, the calmest man in town.

“I need all your boomsticks.” Lucas knew the word dynamite, but his mouth did not. Multiple syllables were proving to be a challenge. Dy-na-mite. A fucking tonguetwister. Easy Pete stopped rocking on his chair, and the world ended for a second time. Or at least, Lucas had guessed, as only a second set of nukes would have prevented Easy Pete from rocking, and even then his mangled corpse would have carried on its damned task.  
“Too dangerous. Gonna kill all yourselves if I let you touch it. Better to leave it buried - safer that way.” His word was law, at least to Pete, until Lucas sighed and offered a swift retort.  
“Gangsters are goin’ to do that anyway. The rocking continued, and the old timer nodded wisely.

“Fair ‘nuff.”

The physics involved in throwing something was complex. If there was one thing that carried on after the end of everything, was the forces of gravity. An object needed to be aimed high, thrown with enough force- but not so much as to overshoot- and hope that physics continued to function as it had for millions of years. Lucas was not a scientist, and threw dynamite at the people shooting at him and the town. 

Hunkered behind crates protected Lucas and Sunny from the bullets, and the gory spray of limbs and viscera. Physics had held up after all. Lucas lit another stick, and tossed it over the crate. An explosion, along with a light smattering of screams followed. Then silence. Lucas threw over another stick, for good measure. 

Having committed mass murder on a group of convicted felons, Lucas went to bed, and left Goodsprings the next morning. It was not a memorable town, and hardly worth mentioning.


	2. LET IT ALL END

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lazy introduction to Fallout 4, with some tales and weird writing!

A week before Halloween, the world was still. Pumpkins, real and fake, dotted yards and windows, smiling their shallow secrets. Paper skeletons rattled carelessly in the wind, preparing their funerals in dumpsters and trash heaps across the country. Children had been excited to dress up as soldiers, defending against Commies and the Red Menace. They were to reenact great battles, charging across lawns and neighbourhoods with little regard to the world around them. 

On the 23rd of October, 2077, the Reaper swept across the land. He was gentle to most, especially the children, soothing their wails and lonely cries. He held their hand as He snapped their necks- over in a blinding instant. Such was the tragic truth of war, such was the Reaper. He danced from city to city, county to county, state to state. The entire western seaboard, over in an hour, and nobody got to go trick or treating.

It was a particular town in Boston that gave the Reaper pause. He knocked on a door, and a woman opened it, carrying in her arms a babe. The child gave no fear, and was nestled in the mother's arms. The mother’s cobalt eyes were fixed with a troubled determination, like a cornered dog that was desperate for that saving grace, unknowing of the higher powers. She uttered a single word.

“Please.” 

Covered by a thick set of dark rags, it was impossible to tell what the Reaper was thinking. A bony hand lifted up to the mother, and brushed her cheek, testing the air. She tensed, shaking with fear, panic and bloody resolve. Tucking His thumb under His index finger, the Reaper laughed. It was the shrillest of whispers, the hacking cough before death, the gust of wind in a cemetery- terrible and absolute.

“Got your nose.” He giggled. The laughter gained momentum, lifting Him off the ground and onto other houses. In that cruel joke, He forgot about the mother and her son, leaving them to fend off with what was left of Halloween.

\-----

Nora held Shaun in her arms as the nukes fell. The whistle of the bomb sung over the grinding of the elevator gears. Don’t look at the detonation. Spinning around, she hoped to God that they made it. Nate clutched her shoulders, acting as a flimsy barrier against the wrath of total annihilation, and Nora was the same for Shaun. Society, gone in an instant. And there they were, husband and wife, trying to keep their son alive.

The elevator lowered, just as the debris soared past them, and they were safe. 

Tears and sobs filled the darkness of the descent, not just of Nora’s, but of the other occupants, who didn’t matter in that decisive moment. Everyone lost everything, and they were alone with that grief. Nate still hadn’t let go, warding off the shadows, and covering his world. The child hadn’t yet cried or offered a single complaint, content in his collection of blankets, and his ridiculous hat. How can a baby comprehend the apocalypse, after all?

Jamming composure into her soul, Nora wrenched a small, devastated smile, and let out a ghost of a breath. They were fine, they were saved.

Blue and yellow jumpsuits awaited them out of the elevator, along with bright faces and overgrown grins. The scientists and technicians were seemingly unbothered by what had just occurred. Did they not know everything was gone? Their rosy expressions were more fitting of a Thanksgiving dinner, greeting friends and family, than running an underground bunker. Maybe they were faking, or trying to be brave.

It didn’t matter. The traumatised group were led down a stark corridor, cold like a hospital, but more industrial, with little chance of death around the corner. At the end of the corridor were more overjoyed Vault-Tec employees, with jumpsuits neatly folded next to them on a table. Eager to continue with orientation, they urged everyone to put on their jumpsuits- they’d have gone to waste otherwise. Nate donned his first, before taking his sleeping son from Nora’s aching arms. 

“I love you.” He murmured, voice strong with reassurance and relief. Her throat clammed up, temporarily robbed of her speech. Her hand gripped his arm, and her head rested on his shoulder. Nate knew, and understood. When she released her silent declaration, they nodded at each other. It was a fresh start, as a family. Nothing could go wrong, they agreed.

Then they were frozen for one hundred and fifty years, and seldom went right after.

\-----

Nobody asks why the bogeyman snatches people in the night. They’re too busy searching for him in their closets and under their beds. But he had already left.

It was a misconception- the bogeyman was the bogeymen, existing as a tribe underground, stealing people away- do not ask why.

One particular day, they came across an icy fortress, enchanted so that its occupants were sleeping for eternity in steel coffins. One such coffin had the King and his infant child. Momentarily lifting the curse, the bogeymen watched as the Queen struggled in her tomb, still bound by her chains, and they released the King from his. 

But it was a trick- the bogeymen jealously coveted the infant Prince, and killed the King out of anger, so that the child would be theirs and nobody else's. Placing the fortress under the spell again, they fled in the night, with the Prince.

Nobody asks why the bogeymen snatch people in the night. They themselves do not know.

\-----

Radiation was responsible for a lot of things: big bugs, big rats, and a lot of dead medium things. Nora blamed the radiation on drying her tear ducts, pinning her lack of emotional response on the fallout rather than herself. She couldn’t cry, and that must have been from the radiation, surely.   
There were plenty of things to cry about that happened in a day. The latest thing on that list were people shooting at her. At Concord, the locals were less than friendly, and were relentlessly firing at Nora. She yelped in surprise at the first volley of bullets, and hid behind a building pillar just in time for the second.

Shooting roaches was one thing, but shooting people? 

A molotov interrupted that moral debate, and forced Nora out into the open. The street was wide, meaning she couldnt reach the other side of it for cover without becoming a decorative pin cushion. Sitting duck, or dead duck, both were not fun options. Neither was killing, but Nora did that anyway.

Lifting her pistol into the air, she fired three shots at a raider. The recoil jolted her body, missing all but one attempt. The third bullet was a mere fluke, lodging itself comfortably into a raider’s head. The others were taken aback by surprise, providing a window of time to find cover. Dashing across the street, Nora tried her first strategy again.

Hiding behind a pillar and praying for the best.

More bullets followed, and then silence. They weren’t dead, as they were still firing expletives in place of live ammo. Peeking past her pillar of safety, Nora noticed that the men firing at her were slapping their guns, suddenly frustrated at them. Adrenaline mixed with confusion brought a stern frown on her face.

“Did you run out of bullets?” she asked genuinely, not knowing the wasteland etiquette. She was met with a series of “fuck you’s”, which in raider-speak, translated to yes. Even Nora understood, and was relieved, up until they brought out blunt objects, and ran towards her. A lack of bullets did not neutralise an enemy. 

Panicking further, Nora aimed at the closest towards her- a man with a tire iron- and rapidly squeezed the trigger. This time, she had adjusted to the power of the gun, and ended another man’s life. Then another, and another. Panting heavily, she tried to reload, and failed. With gritted teeth, she tried again, and was successful, but there was nobody left in the open to shoot. 

Looking around, she saw a man dressed in colonial dress on the balcony of the museum, waving his arms and begging for help. Chewing her bottom lip with irritation and fatigue, Nora went in and killed some more people.

Honestly, and somewhat worryingly, it was not as difficult as she had assumed. The raiders were impatient idiots, firing all of their bullets, even if Nora was behind cover. Then, they’d pick up a rusty pipe and try to beat her to death with it, ignoring common sense. It wouldn’t have worked against smarter opponents, like a cheesecake, or a lukewarm snack cake, but complaining in a life or death situation wasn’t high on Nora’s list.

And so more people died.

It was almost average? Nora’s heart was constantly threatening to burst, screaming and howling after every fatal encounter, but that was nothing new. It had protested and roared after greeting the mailman in the morning, crawling out of bed, eating a bowl of cereal. In that tragic irony, murder was as frightening as living life before the bombs. When the final raider was dead, slumped over a rotten rail, the heart screamed still over the silence. Nora ignored it, and finally took in her surroundings.

The museum hadn’t done too well in the skirmish, all things considered. The wooden structure was peppered with circular holes, further ruining murals and the flaking paint smeared across the rooms. On the uppermost floor, the floorboards were soaked in blood, dripping down below, layering with the other pools on the other levels of the museum. Tired from the observation, Nora stared, and sighed, at the door that the raiders had been trying to beat down. The door that Mister Colonial was behind. The door that would require talking upon opening. God, she needed a nap. Stream of consciousness experiences were stressful at best, nightmarish at worst. 

The light drained from the building, the ground looked more comforting, and she knew unfortunate peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The more incomprehensible the better! Nothing is lucid!


	3. MUTIES

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the author and the courier stall.

Far beyond the land of America, was the land of Canada. Snowy forests smothered the mysterious country, and they were protected by the mutated creatures that stalked the shadows. 

Amara knew not of this, for she was a deathclaw, gifted with the power of speech. Her days were spent south of the death forests, below the snowy abyss. Before the bombs fell, the city Amara presided in was known as Ferndale, full of people and laughter. Now, only she was left, surrounded by empty buildings and silence. Nobody went North anymore, and Amara was quite lonely.

Her intelligence was somewhat of a curse, burdening the deathclaw with the understanding of isolation. Nary a two headed squirrel scuttled down the vacated streets, and even the skeletons rudely crumbled to dust decades ago. Amara would sleep in a ramshackle hut, molded from rusted cars and covered in a multitude of lights. Neon blues and streetlamps served as a beacon- from afar, Ferndale looked almost populated. 

Days were spent searching beyond the city, for any signs of life. Hunting wasn’t necessary on a diet of quality, trademarked Fancy Lad Snack Cakes, and the word was far too sinister for Amara’s liking, so she scouted instead.

There’s no real satisfying end to the story. Amara was shot one day, her flesh consumed, and her hide tanned into a rather lovely set of boots. This took three months to confess. 

\-----

Lucas didn’t tip a waitress five years ago. Not because he was rude, but because he was rather confused by the concept of a waitress. They ‘waited’, letting one order food, but any normal person could just, say, walk up and grab food themselves. It was the equivalent of someone giving another person a tour of a house just to try and sell it. Complete lunacy, really.

The thought of his crime seized him five minutes into his walk away from Goodsprings, and bothered him for another few hours. The diner was fine, Lucas asserted as he kicked a gecko to death. The service was friendly, he acknowledged, as he wiped the gunk from his boot against the dusty road. He read a sign stating ‘Primm’ and came to two conclusions:

One: He was rude to that waitress.  
Two: He had no idea where he was going.

Trudy had briefly mentioned the man who had killed him was headed towards Primm, though it would have been quite the coincidence if the journey ended there. Much like the waitress fiasco, hunting his murderer would keep Lucas up at night for many an hour. Lucas followed the cracks on the road, briefly contemplating if he should go back to the diner from five years ago just to apologise and tip, and then he was interrupted. People loved to interrupt people.

A man playing dress up as a soldier asked Lucas what his business was in Primm. Lucas shrugged. The man did not deserve speech marks, or any real description. Lucas said he could handle himself, and that was that. The soldier let him through, and Lucas frowned. How bad was law enforcement if one airhead could stumble into a town filled with reprobates, criminals, and worse, gamblers? 

The good news was that there were no gamblers beyond the bridge into Primm. There were mines that Lucas carefully, and ridiculously stepped over, though that wasn’t exactly bad news. The bad news was there were more 9mm pistols attached to people who were intent on shooting Lucas, for no reason other than “just because”. They didn’t even give him so much as a “hello- we’re going to kindly murder you now, sorry for the bother”, they just pulled out their weapons, and opened fire. 

Lucas changed the story, and thought about scrabble.

\-----

“Natty isn’t a word” Brutus the supermutant noted, adjusting his spectacles as he peered at the word. He was down ten points, and couldn’t spell many words with just vowels. Needless to say, Brutus was frustrated.

“Look it up.” Wart said, scratching his skull smugly. “I wanted to play chess, so you can’t complain that I’m beating you.” The ghoul was right of course, but Brutus wasn’t in the mood for chess. He knew how to play, yes. But he couldn’t really pick up the pieces well, due to his fist being the size of Wart’s head, and he had lost the tongs after throwing them away when he got checkmated three games in a row. 

Brutus picked up the scrabble dictionary, and spent five minutes precariously turning the yellowed pages. Natty was a legal word. Brutus was a sore loser, and placed the dictionary on the table. 

“It’s a word.”

“Told you.”

“Can’t we play checkers? Or hangman? Or noughts and crosses?”

Wart sighed, and leaned back in his chair. The two were sitting on a beach, watching the sunset. It was somewhere warm, with the sky a lovely pink hue, washing over the two like a bittersweet blanket. Elsewhere, the sky was obscured by clouds and nuclear seasons, but on that beach, with two abominations playing scrabble, the sky was clear. Just for them.

“Yeah, we can bud.” Wart offered a warm smile, and opened up a book. He drew a grid, and hummed at the neatness of it all.

“Sorry.” Brutus rumbled, sinking into his chair. 

“Nothing to be sorry for, it’s just a game.” Wart tapped the paper with his pencil. “Now, how about you recite some King Lear.” Brutus perked up, adjusted his posture, and drew an ‘X’ on the top right corner.   
“I thought the king had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall-” Wart absorbed the words, not knowing the meaning, but appreciating who was saying them.

Brutus lost noughts and crosses, but he didn’t seem to mind. Wart was there, and he was pretty natty.

\-----

Lucas entered the casino. There were no gamblers, and nobody had the desire to shoot him on sight. He couldn’t help but feel slightly bored about it all, though, as long as he didn’t have to shoot anybody else, his day would go smoothly. A wisened man came up to him, screwing his face in a mixture of shock and respect.

“I don’t know what it was brought you to Primm, youngster, but you might want to rethink your plans. Town’s gone to hell.” As if that were news. Lucas blinked slowly, opened his mouth, then promptly closed it. He didn’t really want to talk, and he came to regret interacting with anyone. It was the waitress all over again. Cogs turned, his brain smoked, and produced one single thought.

“I got shot.” Diplomacy. Introductions. Yes. The man scanned Lucas, and his gaze focused above the courier’s eyes, particularly on the forehead. Another screwed up face, with the old man’s wrinkles curving and overlapping. Lucas continued. “I think the man that shot me came through town, and I kinda want to-” He didn’t know what he wanted to do with the man who shot him. The man watched with unease as Lucas stopped functioning.

Make him a souffle? Too friendly. Shoot him? Too cliche. Force him to tapdance? Too weird.

“Ah fuck, I just want to know where he went really. Know anything weird- besides the violent people with guns?” The answer he was given was not a fun one: the deputy probably had an idea. But the deputy was inside the hotel. With the violent people with guns. 

More action.

“Woop.” Lucas noticed the gecko gunk was still on his boots, and he knelt down to rub it off. The boots were leather, and he had gotten an excellent deal, along with a story, from the man who sold them. Having maintained his appearance, despite still looking like total shit, Lucas got up, and walked out of the casino with a huff. He couldn’t avoid it forever, but he could certainly delay it. The walk to the hotel took a very, very long time. 

There was no stalling involved.

None at all.


End file.
